The present invention relates to the construction of an envelope assembly which can be fed into and printed on by laser and/or inkjet printers without skewing. More particularly the present invention relates to an envelope assembly which has the same dimensions as a standard sheet of paper, such as 8-xc2xd in.xc3x9711 in. or A-4 sheet, and which can be fed into a laser and/or inkjet printer through the lower cassette tray.
Many printable envelopes which lend themselves to either laser printers or inkjet printers are in use today. Unfortunately, today""s printable envelopes are subject to xe2x80x9cskewingxe2x80x9d which results when an envelope travels in a misaligned manner through a printer. This results in the address being printed by the printer in a crooked orientation on the envelope. This misalignment is caused by the envelope, which is aligned with one side of the printer""s paper tray, migrating away from the side or edge of the tray during the printing process.
To prevent this skewing the consumer will typically hand feed the envelopes one-at-a-time into the printer. Unfortunately, this is a very time consuming process. Also, the inability to load the multipurpose paper tray with more than a few envelopes at a time prevents large-scale mailings and mail merges wherein a computer program accesses multiple names from a pre-existing database and sends them directly to the printer. Thus, today""s envelopes are essentially unusable for large volume mailing applications using the personal computer (PC) unless special envelope feeders are employed.
Additionally, an industry has developed to supply postage over the Internet (see, e.g., www.stamps.com). PC postage allows consumers to print postage-metered labels at their home. Every time a consumer prints a postage label, he is charged for the postage by the PC postage firm; that is, the act of printing triggers the postage charge. Unfortunately, with today""s envelopes the postage label must be applied by the printer in a step separate from the address printing step. This is because if the consumer attempts to print directly onto normal envelopes, the above-discussed envelope skewing can cause the print to run off the edge of the envelope. This can result in the stamped envelope not being honored by the Post Office. In other words, the consumer will still be charged by the PC postage firm for the PC postage printed envelope even though the envelope is unacceptable to the Post Office due to the skewed printing of the postage label.
An envelope is provided with a generally L-shaped addition. The envelope and the addition are releasably held together so as to form an overall assembly having a length and width generally equal to a standard paper size, such as 8-xc2xd in.xc3x9711 in. which is standard in the United States, or A-4 which is standard in most other countries including the European countries. Because the assembly is of a standard width and length the assembly can be fed into a printer without the need to use a separate envelope guide, and without resulting in skewing. Because the assembly is of a standard length the assembly can be fed through a printer without the printer sensing that the assembly did not have a back edge when the printer expected to detect a back edge and therefore aborting the print job and producing a xe2x80x9cprinter errorxe2x80x9d message. The assembly can be loaded into and fed through a lower printer cassette tray of laser printers, ink jet printers, or other printers which interface to personal computers. In this way the present invention transforms an envelope into an 8-xc2xd in.xc3x9711 in. or other standard size assembly which can be fed through the lower cassette tray of a laser printer in large quantities and at high speeds. The assembly can also be loaded into other imprinting devices such as digital copiers and photocopiers. In this way a large number of envelopes may be accurately, reliably, and quickly printed with a destination address, a return address, postage, and/or other informational or decorative matter, without the need for human intervention such as feeding small numbers of envelopes one at a time into a printer""s xe2x80x9cmanualxe2x80x9d or multipurpose feeder tray. Because the lower tray of a laser printers is also designed to hold paper sheets more securely than the multipurpose feeder tray, the present invention also allows envelopes to be printed with less chance of skewing.
In a first embodiment, the envelope and an L-shaped carrier are constructed separately. The L-shaped carrier is then releasably adhered to the back of the envelope. The two pieces may be releasably adhered together using a variety of known techniques such as by removable adhesive, a pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) on one piece with the other piece coated with a release material such as silicone, or a weak permanent adhesive such as a dry laminate. The carrier, which is placed over the back side of the envelope, partially overlaps the envelope along the envelope""s side edge to allow nearly full access to the envelope pocket for stuffing. The carrier overlaps the top of the envelope only on its closure flap, again to allow access to the envelope pocket for stuffing. The assembly may further include a release strip separating the carrier from the closure flap in order to give the consumer the option of either separating the carrier and release strip from the envelope in a single step, or separating the carrier from the envelope while leaving the release strip protecting the adhesive over the closure flap. If the consumer leaves the release strip on the envelope, then he can then peel off the release strip when he is ready to seal the envelope. In a second embodiment utilizing only two pieces, a flap closure adhesive is used which does not require a separate release strip. In a third embodiment, the carrier is adhered to the front of the envelope, overlapping the envelope slightly, leaving the front of the envelope sufficiently uncovered to allow desired matter to be printed on the face of the envelope such as a destination address, a return address, postage, and any other information or decorative material.
In a fourth embodiment, the envelope and carrier are integrally formed from a single oversized die cut sheet of paper. The paper is cut and folded to form an envelope and an L-shaped appendage or extended portion, defining overall an assembly of a standard paper size. In the folded state the assembly defines an envelope separably attached to the L-shaped appendage by cuts and ties or other weakened separation line. The folded assembly may then be fed into a printer or copier, printed upon, and then separated from the L-shaped appendage. As in the other embodiments, the stuffing step can be performed either before or after the envelope has been separated from the L-shaped piece. The portion of the L-shaped piece that will abut the closure flap after folding may be treated with a release material such as silicone to prevent the closure flap from sticking to that piece.
It is further noted that the envelope sealing flaps are preferably coated with permanent PSA. When the assembly does not include an extra release strip, the L-shaped carrier may be coated with release material where it overlies the PSA. It is also noted that the L-shaped carrier also facilitates loading of the envelope by holding the envelope flap open and providing extended guidance as papers are inserted into the envelope. Accordingly the L-shaped carrier performs several useful functions including (1) ensuring non-skewing printing of the envelope, (2) covering the PSA on the sealing flap until the envelope is to be sealed, and (3) facilitating loading of materials to be enclosed in the envelope.
Exemplary embodiments of the invention will be further described below with reference to the drawings, in which like numbers refer to like parts.